Category Archives: Africa

‘Extraordinary event’ for mountain gorillas as new twins born in DRC

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Conservationists celebrate second twin birth just two months after another found in Virunga national park

A second set of mountain gorilla twins has been born in Virunga national park in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), in what conservationists are celebrating as an “extraordinary” event for the endangered primates.

Just two months after tiny twin mountain gorillas were discovered by rangers in the Virunga massif, in eastern DRC, another rare twin birth has been found by park wardens. This time, an infant male and female have been spotted in the Baraka family, a troop of 19 mountain gorillas that roam the region’s high-altitude rainforests.

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Strike on Sudan hospital kills at least 64 and wounds 89 more, WHO reports

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Victims of army drone attack on East Darfur health facility included children and medical personnel

A strike on a healthcare facility in Sudan has killed 64 people and wounded 89 more, the World Health Organization reported on Saturday.

The UN’s humanitarian office in Sudan had earlier said it was “appalled by the attack on a hospital in East Darfur yesterday, reportedly killing dozens, including children, and injuring more”.

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Some of the world’s poorest countries to lose UK aid due to 56% budget cut

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UK’s bilateral aid to African countries, which funds areas such as schools and clinics, to be cut by almost £900m by 2028-29

Some of the world’s poorest countries will lose out on UK aid that funds programmes such as schools and clinics, due to budget cuts set out by the foreign secretary.

The UK’s bilateral aid to African countries will be reduced by almost £900m by 2028-29 – a 56% cut – as part of more than £6bn in cuts which are funding an increase in defence spending.

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Woman has sentence quashed by Tanzania court after over a decade on death row

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Lemi Limbu, who has severe intellectual disabilities, remains in prison and will now face retrial for the murder of her daughter

A woman with severe intellectual disabilities in Tanzania has had her conviction and death sentence quashed after spending more than a decade in prison awaiting execution.

Lemi Limbu, now in her early 30s, was convicted of the murder of her daughter in 2015. On 4 March, a court in Shinyanga, northern Tanzania, declared she can appeal. She will face a retrial, but a date has yet to be set.

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Jihadist violence in Nigeria and DRC rose sharply last year even as global deaths from terror fell

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Nigeria had largest increase in terrorism-related deaths, ranking fourth in global index behind Pakistan, Burkina Faso and Niger

Jihadist violence rose sharply in Nigeria and Democratic Republic of Congo last year, even as global deaths from terrorism dropped to their lowest level in a decade, according to a new report.

Nigeria recorded the largest increase in terrorism deaths globally in 2025, with fatalities rising by 46% from 513 in 2024 to 750, placing it fourth in the Global Terrorism Index, behind Pakistan, Burkina Faso and Niger.

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Belgian court sends ex-diplomat, 93, to trial over 1961 murder of Congo leader

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Family of then PM, Patrice Lumumba, welcome decision to charge Étienne Davignon as ‘beginning of a reckoning’

A former Belgian diplomat, 93, should stand trial over alleged complicity in the 1961 murder of Patrice Lumumba, the first prime minister of what was then the newly independent Congolese state, a Brussels court has ruled.

Étienne Davignon, the only person still alive among 10 Belgians the Lumumba family accuses of involvement in the killing, is charged with participation in war crimes.

The illegal transfer of Lumumba and his associates from Léopoldville (now Kinshasa) to Katanga.

The “humiliating and degrading treatment” of the men.

Depriving them of a fair trial.

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At least 23 people killed in suspected suicide attacks in north-eastern Nigeria

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More than 100 others injured in bombings targeting post office, market areas and hospital in Maiduguri

At least 23 people have been killed and more than 100 others injured in multiple suspected suicide bombings in the north-eastern Nigerian city of Maiduguri, shattering its reputation as a relative oasis of calm in recent years as a long-running insurgency was pushed to the rural hinterlands.

Authorities said the explosions went off at the post office and market areas, as well as the entrance to the University of Maiduguri teaching hospital, on Monday evening during iftar, the breaking of fast in the month of Ramadan.

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‘These connections are overlooked’: how British companies profited from slavery in Brazil long after abolition

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Britons learn about the country’s involvement ‘almost as a self-congratulatory narrative’, says historian Joseph Mulhern

In 1845 British citizens and companies were already legally prohibited from owning or buying enslaved people overseas, yet that year 385 captives were “transferred” to a British mining company in Brazil named St John d’El Rey.

Despite a global campaign waged by the UK against slavery and the transatlantic slave trade, the move was not technically illegal because the enslaved people were not sold but “rented” – a practice permitted overseas under the 1843 Slave Trade Act.

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Africa particularly vulnerable as Iran conflict disrupts supply chains, say experts

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Food production in many African countries depends heavily on fertiliser imported from the Gulf through the strait of Hormuz

Countries in Africa, where farmers depend heavily on imported fertiliser and a large share of household income goes on food, are particularly vulnerable to supply chain disruptions caused by the war in the Middle East, experts have said.

The conflict has drastically disrupted trade through the strait of Hormuz, a vital shipping lane not just for oil and gas but also for fertiliser, which is produced in vast quantities in the Gulf.

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France returns sacred talking drum looted from Côte d’Ivoire over 100 years ago

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Djidji Ayôkwé was handed to Ivorian officials in Paris earlier this month

A sacred artefact looted by French colonial authorities more than a century ago has been returned to Côte d’Ivoire in one of the most significant cultural restitutions to a former French colony in years.

The Djidji Ayôkwé, a talking drum confiscated in 1916 by French administrators, landed at 8.45am on Friday at the airport in Port Bouët on the outskirts of the economic capital, Abidjan. It was handed over to Ivorian officials in Paris earlier this month after being removed from the Quai Branly – Jacques Chirac Museum.

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UK government axes flagship global health project

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Programme which supports schemes in six African countries was previously hailed as vital protection for Britain against future pandemics

A flagship health project in Africa, which UK ministers said would play a vital role in protecting Britain from future pandemic threats, is being axed due to aid cuts, the Guardian can reveal.

The Global Health Workforce Programme (GHWP) which supported development and training for healthcare staff in six African countries, will close at the end of the month, the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) said.

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‘Invasive’ AI-led mass surveillance in Africa violating freedoms, warn experts

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Countries across the continent have spent more than $2bn on Chinese tracking technology that is not ‘necessary or proportionate’, new report finds

The rapid expansion of AI-powered mass-surveillance systems across Africa is violating citizens’ right to privacy and having a chilling effect on society, according to experts on human rights and emerging technologies.

At least $2bn (£1.5bn) has been spent by 11 African governments on Chinese-built surveillance technology that recognises faces and monitors movements, according to a new report by the Institute of Development Studies, which warns that national security is being used to justify implementing these systems with little regulation.

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At least 17 killed after drone strikes school in Sudan

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Strike in Shukeiri killed schoolgirls, teachers and healthcare workers in latest incident in three-year war

At least 17 people, most of them schoolgirls, were killed on Wednesday when an explosive-laden drone blamed on Sudan’s paramilitary Rapid Support Forces struck a secondary school and a health care centre.

At least 10 people were wounded in the strike in the village of Shukeiri in the White Nile province, according to Dr Musa al-Majeri, director of Douiem hospital, the nearest major medical facility to the village.

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French aid worker among three killed in dronestrike in east DRC, M23 rebels say

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Rebel group blames government for attack on residential area of M23-controlled city of Goma

Three people including a French UN aid worker have been killed in a drone attack in Goma, a spokesperson for the M23 rebel group has said.

The attack took place at about 4am on Wednesday in the upmarket residential neighbourhood of Himbi in the city, which has been under M23 occupation since January 2025.

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At least 65 Nigerian soldiers killed in jihadist raids in country’s north-east

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Gunmen from Islamic State West Africa Province overran four military bases and abducted 300 civilians, say reports

At least 65 Nigerian soldiers have been killed in jihadist raids across the country’s north-east in the last two weeks, as the west African state battles to contain one of the world’s deadliest terror groups.

On 5 and 6 March, gunmen from Islamic State West Africa Province (Iswap) overran four military bases in Borno state, the epicentre of the insurgency. Nigerian daily the Punch reported that about 40 soldiers were killed in total in these attacks.

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Experts fear ‘unethical’ vaccine trial in Africa is ‘prototype’ for US studies under RFK Jr

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Danish researchers whose work on effects of vaccines has been called into question are at center of US vaccine policy

New details are leading experts to fear that an “unethical” vaccine trial in Guinea-Bissau is the “prototype” for studies under Robert F Kennedy Jr, secretary of the US department of health and human services (HHS) and longtime vaccine critic.

At the center of US vaccine policy is an unlikely set of Danish researchers whose work on the health effects of vaccines has been called into question. The study in Guinea-Bissau would have looked at the overall health effects of giving hepatitis B vaccines by only vaccinating half of the newborns in the study at birth despite an 18% prevalence rate in adults of the illness, which can lead to serious and sometimes fatal health consequences.

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Prison sentences for pair who attacked gay men hailed as sign of hope for Kenya’s LGBTQ+ community

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The perpetrators were jailed for 15 years for robbery with violence in the east African country, where homophobic attacks are increasing

The sentencing of two people who attacked and robbed two gay men in Kenya has been hailed by LGBTQ+ rights advocates as a breakthrough and a sign of hope for the country’s queer community. “Abel Meli & Another” were sentenced to 15 years in prison for robbery with violence on 3 March at Milimani law courts in Nairobi.

The ruling is a rare example of justice being served for the queer community in Kenya. Njeri Gateru, the executive director of the National Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission, an independent human rights institution working towards equality for sexual and gender minorities in Kenya, said: “A lot is going against [the queer community] with the existence of the criminal laws and prevailing homophobic attitudes, but some of us still trust that we can find justice, so this case encourages us.”

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Villagers on Príncipe, the ‘African Galapagos’, to be paid for protecting the ecosystem

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A billionaire is funding a sustainable development project on the west African island that makes the local population stewards of its future

At the crumbling colonial farm buildings in Porto Real, agricultural worker Kimilson Lima, 43, has signed the agreement and he’s happy. “With this money we can have a proper floor in the house,” he said. “And an inside toilet.”

Lima is part of a ground-breaking experiment on the West African island of Príncipe, where villagers who agree to follow an environmental protection code will reap a quarterly dividend. To date nearly 3,000 have joined the Faya Foundation’s project, more than 60% of the adult population. The first payment of €816 (£708) has just been delivered, a large amount of money on the island. “This will be truly transformative, both for nature and for the people,” said the president of the self-governing region, Felipe Nascimento.

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Descendants of Zimbabwe resistance heroes urge UK to locate looted skulls

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Relatives call on institutions to help them find remains of ancestors who led fight against British colonisers in 1890s

Descendants of freedom fighters executed and beheaded in southern Africa by colonial British forces have called on the Natural History Museum in London and the University of Cambridge to help them find their ancestors’ looted skulls.

Zimbabwean descendants of the first chimurenga heroes, who led an uprising against British colonisers in the 1890s, have long believed the museum and university hold several of the skulls.

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Three men deported by US file legal case against Eswatini over detention

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The men, sent to Africa after completing criminal sentences in the US, are from Cuba, Jamaica and Yemen

Three men deported by the US to Eswatini – rather than their home countries – have filed a case against Eswatini’s government with the African Union’s human rights body, claiming their detention was an unlawful violation of their rights.

Two of the claimants, from Cuba and Yemen, have been in prison in Eswatini, formerly Swaziland, for eight months. The third, Orville Etoria, was repatriated to his home country, Jamaica, in September.

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